Whew, that was close. Try to ignore Billy's
subtle hint on the album sleeve photo (about having just bought a poultry farm
in Texas or something like that), and The
Way I Am will successfully correct and purify the aura that Motown blew in
around their unfortunate duet batch with Syreeta. At the very least, this album
is not downright awful. It is
predictably generic, and boring, and un­inspired, but it rarely aspires to
something else.

Basically, the mascot of this here album is the
cover of Sam Cooke's ʽA Change Is Gonna Comeʼ — a seriously belated tribute to
one of Billy's major influences, done with competence, sincerity, and
absolutely nothing else that would warrant its existence. The song is a great
anthem for the ages, Billy Preston is a nice fifth Beatle, the keyboard
inventory consists of a snowy organ in­stead of a Yamaha synthesizer — it's
pretty hard to complain. It's probably the best cover of ʽA Change Is Gonna
Comeʼ that was done in 1982, but I couldn't be sure, considering that 90% of
black artists and 45% of white artists probably did it at least once in their
lifetime.

Elsewhere, what we have is: an electronic disco
instrumental (ʽGood Life Boogieʼ) with a techno­phile synth solo, a couple
dance rockers with either a pop (ʽHopeʼ) or a funk (ʽKeep On Truckin'ʼ)
undercurrent, some heavily orchestrated tender-hearted disco numbers à la ʽMore Like A Wo­manʼ (ʽBaby I'm
Yoursʼ), an oddly out-of-place slide-driven country blues ballad (ʽUntil
Thenʼ), and a pompous, pathetic, tear-gushing, string-flowing «Life-Will-Never-Be-The-Same-Once-I-Finally-Lay-This­-Shit-Down»
power ballad (title track), which is probably unsalvageable, like most of the
songs that have the artist explicitly sobbing into the microphone, spoiling
both the expensive equipment and whatever emotional effect he could have
triggered otherwise.

There is nothing whatsoever here worth hearing
— it is not quite a successful
retreat to Billy's late-1970s disco era standards, when there was that certain
light, fluffy charm emanating from his kiddie melodies and his band trying to
turn them into genuinely hot grooves. Overproduction, bombastic strings
arrangements, obvious disinterest on the part of the backing players — it's all
there, not to mention the album's being out-of-print for years. But in all
honesty, it could have been much
worse — if anything, the album and song title do give an indication that Billy is trying to revert to whatever it is he
is used to do, and wants to do,
instead of having to tag along with the kids, strutting his stuff to those hip
electrofunk waves. From that point of view, we could even convince ourselves to
forget, if not forgive, the cowboy hat and the open chest.

Actually, yes. Billy Preston was an openly gay black man at a time when being either one wasn't particularly safe. He didn't really talk about it publicly, but everybody who knew him says that it's the truth.